A Whisper in the Night
by Umeko
Summary: Captain Teague is feeling a bit lonely on Halloween night when he receives an unexpected visitor


Disclaimer – Disney owns the entire franchise of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Written for a challenge – Halloween Ghost Story.

**A Whisper in the Night**

Teague sat on his bed strumming his guitar. There should be someone else there, listening to his strumming. _Jackie boy perhaps, bright-eyed and eager to see the world. Or his dear Jenny Wren with her dark soulful eyes and raven tresses. _But the cabin was devoid of any other soul except for the yawning mutt at his feet. He bent over to scratch the mutt's chin. His bones complained at this movement. Years spent at sea did little good for old worn-out knees.

"Ye loved this song, Jenny… Here's to ye," Teague grinned at the shrunken head he kept hanging at the head of his bed. The sun had bleached the hair to a slight reddish hue. The cheeks were sunken and the eyes hollowed. Still, he could make out that petulant chin and her fine nose. It had been a nasty shock when the _Bloody Sunday_ pulled into port at Tortuga without her captain, Jenny Wren, at the helm. His worst fears were confirmed when his daughter, now Captain Wayward 'Willy' Raven, informed him that her mother was no more.

"Ran into some headhunting types up the Amazon. Mother and a few other chaps didn't make it…" Wilhelmina Raven explained in her clipped upper-crust accent as they shared a bottle of rum at the _Fine Lady_. Willy was every bit her mother's daughter, both in looks and brains. She could be relied upon to keep out of trouble, unlike Jack. The last Teague heard, she had taken up with a disgraced French privateer and was happily sacking ships off the coast of New Hispaniola. He was never close to his daughter, having left her upbringing to his wife. Unlike Jack, Willy spent barely a month with him throughout her entire life and he might as well be a total stranger to her as she was to him.

He got roaring drunk and goodness knew how Willy managed to get him back to his cabin in one piece given her petite build. Somehow, he woke up in his own bed with a pot of bitter black tea for his hangover nearby, just the way Jenny made it. Willy also left Jenny Wren's shrunken head for her dear da. The surviving crew had managed to retrieve their late captain and crewmates' shrunken heads from the tribe and kept them on board the _Bloody Sunday_ while they sorted out the funeral arrangements. No one could agree on how to bury Jenny Wren's head since no one was sure if she were Catholic, Jewish or Puritan. She had been hanging out in her daughter's cabin for a good year before Willy handed the head over to her da. It would be about the time Jack had his run-in with the Kraken.

Suddenly, that bottle of rum on the table looked mighty appealing. Teague plodded over to the table and took a swig from the bottle. The dog whined in his sleep, gnashing his teeth at dream-rabbits. The old pirate drained one bottle and started on another, seeking solace in his rum.

_You will pay for it come morning, Eddie… _Teague turned around. He could almost imagine Jenny teasing him…

"Jenny? Is that you?" Jenny was sitting on his bed with a smile on her face, as real as life. Well, almost. There was a pale misty glow about her and she made a face.

_Well, sort of. I am dead, you know… Lord, you haven't been combing my hair, have you? I've mould growing on my hair!_ The ghost inspected the shrunken head with a critical eye.

"Oh, Jenny… I missed you so bad…" the tipsy Teague staggered over and tried to hug his dearly departed spouse.

_Oh, what part of dead do you not get? I'm a ghost, a spirit…_ Jenny Wren rolled her eyes as Teague's arms passed through her form as if she were but mist.

"Jack… Oh, Jack, is he…" Teague glanced about, hoping against hope.

_Kraken got him, he's in Davy Jones' Locker, so Ma says…_ Jenny shrugged. _Jackie'll get out somehow. Always does. _Jenny's indifference with regards to her offspring was part of her character. Otherwise she would never have let her children remain on board pirate ships.

"I missed ye, Jenny…" Teague gasped. He was rewarded with an icy kiss on his cheek. "I love you, Jenny…"

_I know, Eddie. And I love you too… _

"How did ye… I thot…"

_Halloween, Eddie. On this night the veil between the living and the dead thins… sometimes we're allowed to meet the living…_ Jenny shimmered like a flame in the breeze. _Just for a while._ She stroked her beloved's head with her ghostly hand as he lay his head down on her lap. No, the bed below.

_You will need black tea tomorrow for a hangover._ She smiled as the pirate's head drooped and Teague slipped into dreamland. Someone rapped on the door and pushed it open.

"Capt'n? Yer turn fer watch… oh…" Honest Tom blinked his eyes at the sight. Jenny placed a finger on her ghostly lips…

"GHOST!" the hapless chief mate fled. Jenny shook her head. She hated it when they did that.

_Au revoir, my dearest…_ she bestowed a kiss on her sleeping spouse before fading away into the night.

**Author's Notes:**

Not a scary story, but there is a ghost.


End file.
